


fallen leaves

by bonebo



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 07:05:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8964742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonebo/pseuds/bonebo
Summary: The kid comes in raging--all swinging kicks and smoldering glares, resisting the two Blackwatch operatives that grip his shoulders and the rope ties that cut into his wrists behind his back. He struggles like he actually has a chance at escaping, fights like he’s not some beaten-up sack of skin and bones that the desert hatefully spit out. The frenzied, disjointed struggle reminds Gabriel of the coyotes that prowl around these sun-baked fields, crazed by the heat and willing to fight anything they come close enough to because they’re starving to death anyway. Gabriel supposes the two aren’t entirely different.





	

The kid comes in raging--all swinging kicks and smoldering glares, resisting the two Blackwatch operatives that grip his shoulders and the rope ties that cut into his wrists behind his back. He struggles like he actually has a chance at escaping, fights like he’s not some beaten-up sack of skin and bones that the desert hatefully spit out. The frenzied, disjointed struggle reminds Gabriel of the coyotes that prowl around these sun-baked fields, crazed by the heat and willing to fight anything they come close enough to because they’re starving to death anyway.

Gabriel supposes the two aren’t entirely different.

And were he a more patient man, Gabriel might’ve taken the opportunity to try to talk the kid down. Try to convince him that he didn’t need to chew his own arm off to get out of this situation alive; that this road didn’t have to end in darkness and a cell.

But patience has never been one of Gabriel’s defining traits. He gives his agents a pointed nod.

“Sit his ass down.”

The kid scowls as he’s thunked down in the hard wooden chair, and he hisses at the unnamed man who grabs his restrained wrists, jerking them up behind his back sharply; job done, the agents file out silently. And after a fitful moment of struggling the kid throws his glare to Gabriel instead, baring his teeth like something wild as he snarls, “You ain’t gonna break me. I ain’t gonna tell you nothin’.”

Gabriel raises a brow at him, but doesn’t bother to hide how unimpressed he is by the kid’s thwarted efforts to get away. Instead sits back in his chair with a dismissive hum, and thumbs open the manilla folder on the table between them, giving it a glance. He lets his gaze wander back and forth on the page, slowly; lets the kid stew and worry a bit before Gabriel dives right into business. “Jesse McCree, born and raised in Santa Fe, member of the Deadlock Gang since fifteen. Blah blah, wanted for grand theft and murder, blah blah...whatever.”

Gabriel’s gaze flicks up. “You know who I am, kid?”

“I ain’t no kid!” Jesse snaps, thrashing against the chair with a renewed fervor. “I’ve killed people! And I don’t give a rat’s ass who you think you are! You ain’t gonna get nothin’ outta me!”

Gabriel pauses for a moment as Jesse’s words echo in the small room, listening to his huffing and puffing with a distant sense of annoyance. His posture doesn’t change--remains that same impassive boredom that has broken down criminals ten times the caliber of this Jesse McCree--and when the kid’s quieted down again, Gabriel quirks a brow.

“...You done?”

At Jesse’s sullen silence, broken only by the quiet noise of his labored breathing, Gabriel looks over his shoulder at the mirror stretched across the majority of the wall. He holds that silent contact for a while--like turning his back on Jesse is no big deal, like he’s no threat, like the snub doesn’t make Jesse’s teeth gnash in anger--then nods slowly, thoughtfully. He finally turns his gaze back on Jesse, dark eyes glittering with a new kind of intensity.

“Because that’s what they all say. Kid.” Before Jesse can spout his anger again, Gabriel barrels on, voice cold and cutting like steel. “And since you’re so gung-ho to lay out some intel, let me give you some of my own--the first being: I don’t give a fuck who you think you are.”

Jesse sits up a little straighter at that, his scowl darkening, and Gabriel feels a rush of anger-tinted amusement crawl through him. Good.

“I don’t give a fuck how tough you think you are, or how many innocent people you’ve managed to put a bullet in, or how much your little ragtag gang has stoked your ego.” He stand and circles around the table, keenly aware of Jesse’s eyes on him as he comes closer, looming over the kid. This close, it’s easier to see the hollows of Jesse’s cheeks, the darkness under his angry eyes. “Because right now, you’re just some dumbass kid sitting in my interrogation room and not realizing just how much shit you’re really in. You want to die, kid? You want to spend your life rotting in some hole in the ground, until some inmate who’s actually tough comes along and kills you with his bare hands for looking at him wrong? Because that’s where you’re headed. That’s what your reality is. You think your little gang is going to bust you out of federal lockup?”

Gabriel pulls away sharply, fiercely satisfied to see that most of the fire has gone out of Jesse’s eyes, replaced with a look of realization. Of mounting fear. Good--let him fester in that panic for a bit. It could serve to make his choices easier.

“Now then. Fucking sit and think for a bit, McCree.” Gabriel goes to the door, keeping his back to Jesse as he pulls it open. Before he leaves, he has the decency to toss over his shoulder, “Maybe when I come back, you’ll be easier to work with, chico.”

Gabriel shuts the door with a sharp snap, and leaves Jesse alone to mutter his curses.

-x-

Jack Morrison always has a knack for ruining Gabriel’s moods.

He stands on the other side of the one-way glass, arms crossed and face pinched tight as he stares at Jesse, sizes him up like he’s some real criminal and not a confused kid. Gabriel wants nothing more than to knock him upside the head and berate him for it, bicker with him like they used to do back in the glory days--but the knowledge of the cameras in the room, the eyes that watch them at all times, keeps him in check. Keeps him strictly professional.

He leans against the wall and follows Jack’s line of sight, assesses Jesse again. The kid’s doing nothing but sulking, slumped in his chair and glaring at the table like it’s done him some personal wrong, lips moving as he no doubt curses everything in the room.

Gabriel finds it somewhat endearing.

Because there’s a look in the kid’s eyes that he recognizes, something bitter and angry that takes him back to the broken streets of Los Angeles, takes him back to being all alone against the world. Gabriel sets his jaw and glances back over at Jack, voice flat as he says, “He’s not going to jail.”

“...what?” Jack blinks once, twice, gives his head a shake; like Gabriel’s words have shattered his sphere of calm and controlled and perfect. His expression changes from something neutral to sheer confusion. “He’s killed people, Gabriel. I mean, he’s not going right now--we could use him for information on Deadlock. God knows the kind of intel he has--”

“He’s a fucking kid, Jack,” Gabriel snaps. He’s almost surprised, himself, at the heat that bleeds into his tone and makes it sharp; but then he remembers vividly what it was like to be young and in over his head, messing with things outside his control just for a chance to feel like he belonged somewhere. He’ll be damned if he just stands by and watches this kid go through those consequences alone.

No one was there for him. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be there for someone else.

Jack’s lips press together into a tight frown, and Gabriel has to backtrack. “Overwatch won’t let you use him for anything,” he starts, tone carefully schooled back into neutrality--Jack always responded best to simple facts laid out, emotionless and plain. And his rank, the damn cameras, they burn like coals in the back of Gabriel’s head; they keep the worst of the vitriol out of his voice. “He’s a damn kid and he’s probably scared out of his mind. How do you think high brass would receive intel that came from a teenager about to piss his pants?”

Gabriel shrugs away from the wall, heading for the door--he’s said what he needed to say, and Jack’s silence is as good a confirmation as any. He’s never really had the guts to go against Gabriel’s orders by himself anyway.

But just for professionalism's sake, for the eyes watching, Gabriel pauses when he reaches the threshold and turns back to give Jack a steady look. “You want his information? You want him to be useful to you? Then give him to me. Let me help him. I’ll turn him into something we can both be proud of.”

“Give him to you,” Jack echoes, looking toward Jesse again; he sounds distant, different. It’s the Strike Commander voice, and Gabriel hates it. Hates how it takes Jack away from him, makes him into something he’s not. “To Blackwatch....and when he bolts on your first trip out?”

“Then I kill him.” Gabriel shrugs, the words coming easily in their honesty. “No skin off my back, and nothing lost except a bullet. No one to know about it, except our own.” He pauses, then adds thoughtfully, “But I’d rather not, if I don’t have to. You’ve seen what he can do with that old gun. Puts some of your snipers to shame.”

“He could’ve gotten lucky.”

“No one’s that lucky. He nearly took Moreno’s head off at four hundred yards.”

“He--”

“With a revolver.”

Jack’s arms cross tighter. He scowls, then sighs, finally letting his shoulders slump.

“....Fine,” he mutters, looking over at Gabriel warily. There’s a tiredness in his eyes--something Gabriel has been seeing in him more and more lately, like Jack’s being eroded away bit by bit and just doesn’t have the energy to carry on with his usual brightness. At a later date--one far in the distance--Gabriel might mourn that loss, and try to help Jack through it; but right now, he has zero qualms with using that fatigue to his advantage.

The less they fight, the happier everyone is.

“But.” He turns to face Gabriel fully, the lines of his face hard and unrelenting--Strike-Commander Morrison, once again, his compassion gone like mist in sunlight. “He’s on probation. You get him for two months, and then he gets an assessment, and I get a progress report. If he’s not up to where I want him to be, where he needs to be, then we quit giving second chances to a killer. He goes into solitary lockup for murder and that is the last anyone will see or hear of Jesse McCree.”

The finality of it rings in the room--two months. Eight weeks to turn the kid from this angry, snarling lowlife to something Blackwatch, Overwatch, and the whole world can be proud of.

“That’s not going to be easy,” Gabriel says, biting down on his smile. Victory.

Jack’s gaze turns away, dismissively.

“You’ve always liked a challenge.”

-x-

A challenge, indeed, because Jesse McCree unlocks like a puzzle.

Finding the pieces of him isn’t hard, because he flaunts his beliefs to anything that will stand still long enough; wearing his identity on his sleeve like a badge of honor, like the gaudy buckle on his belt. But figuring out how it all works together, how the pieces fit into this one messy, angry man--that’s the hard part. It’s also the biggest obstacle in Gabriel’s path of bringing the kid around.

He starts as soon as he can, when he brings McCree into Blackwatch HQ. The sleeping quarters are small but the team is even smaller, and with the lack of new recruits Gabriel decides it best to give Jesse one of the empty rooms, a place to call his own. It’s not much; just a bed, a closet, four walls and a window. Gabriel thinks he might be imagining the disbelief in McCree’s eyes when he realizes the room is all his--there and gone in an instant, covered again by sullen anger--but it still stirs some emotion in him he can’t quite put a name to, something he doesn’t think he’s felt since the calamity that was Jack Morrison and the SEP. Gabriel tells himself he’ll examine it more later--when he’s alone, able to untangle his head in the privacy of his own space. Not here, babysitting.

After looking around the room like he’s examining it--like he actually has a standard to compare it to--McCree sits heavily on the bunk. His fatigues all but swallow his underfed frame, make him look like he’s wearing a tent. It’s a little hilarious, a little sad that they’re the smallest size Blackwatch has. Gabriel’s determined to make sure McCree fits in them--grows out of them--before too long.

He leans against the wall, closest to McCree--easily distant, nonthreatening. Jesse’s eyes linger on him and Gabriel thinks again of coyotes, of the passive calm of an animal before it bites. He lets out a breath.

“So.” Conversational, he tells himself. Casual. He and McCree are going to have to get to know each other--to trust each other--for Jesse’s sake. Even if this idiot cowboy doesn’t know just how closely he’s circling the drain. “How’d you wind up in Deadlock, kid? They robbing the preschools now?”

“Same way I wound up here, I figure,” McCree spits right back, and there’s no imagining the hostility in his tone, the bitterness. Gabriel can’t exactly fault him for that, though it does make his lip curl. “Someone saw I was good with a gun, and they gave me a choice.” He pauses, scoffs; dismissive. His hands curl into fists on his thighs. “Only difference is that your deal didn’t involve a bullet in my brain.”

Gabriel is quiet for a moment, letting the information settle. Digesting this new bit of McCree revealed to him; picturing a kid staring down the barrel of a gun and forced to choose. He can’t say he blames McCree for the decision he made. Can’t say he’d make a different one, himself.

“And your family?”

McCree’s fists twitch. “Didn’t have that choice,” he says, his voice ringing hollow. He gets up, every muscle in him tense and drawn tight, and keeps his back ramrod straight as he stares into Gabriel’s eyes. “Can I go?”

Gabriel straightens up. “McCree--”

“Can I go, sir.”

Their gazes lock--fiery emotion staring down chilled neutrality, Jesse’s anger against Gabriel’s detached apathy, McCree versus Reyes. Gabriel has a feeling it’s going to be a matchup that happens often, until he wrangles the kid under control.

He sighs sharply through his teeth. “Dismissed.”

McCree dips his head tightly and turns on his heel to all but storm out the door, disappearing down the turns of the hallway, heading for the rec room. Gabriel has half a mind to follow, but after a moment of irritated thought just sags back against the wall and fishes out his communicator, frowning down at the lines of unanswered emails from Morrison, J.

Gabriel heads up the hallway with his eyes on his tablet, but turns toward his office instead of following the rec room’s alluring din. He figures the kid has earned some peace.

-x-

It is no coincidence that McCree’s first mission takes him far away from home--away from the desert he grew up in, and to the lush greenery of Thailand.

Gabriel can’t decide if he should thank Jack for the Overwatch-assigned mission or be angry that he’s meddling in Blackwatch affairs again, and decides that he’ll wait to see the outcome before he settles on a reaction. In the meantime, there’s plenty to keep him occupied.

“C’mon, brat. In with you.” Moreno’s voice is as rough as the hand that shoves Jesse toward the airship, but there’s a kind of fondness there, too--in the three weeks that he’s officially been Blackwatch, Jesse’s managed to worm his way into the older agent’s good graces and stick there like a burr. Gabriel watches Moreno swipe Jesse’s hat off his head and rolls his eyes at the kid’s shout of protest.

“He’s not a bad fit, you know.”

Gabriel glances over at Hartmann’s voice, raises a brow as his SIC leans against the wall beside him. His fatigues are left unbuttoned, casual, baring the sand gold t-shirt underneath--he’s staying behind, for this mission. Watching the house while Gabriel goes to clean up the neighborhood.

“...you think so?” He looks back toward the transport; the dark of the airship’s interior keeps them from seeing inside, but he can imagine there’s a scuffle brewing. “Moreno seems to like him well enough.”

Hartmann barks out a laugh, the lines around his mouth wrinkling deeper. “Moreno likes anything that’ll sit still and listen to him ramble about video games.” He pauses, then scoffs and adds, “Sometimes I wonder how he even got in the military. Who pried him away from his computer?”

“He’s only twenty-eight,” Gabriel replies fondly, but the point is moot--he knows Hartmann would take a bullet for Moreno any day. They all would.

Gabriel wonders if that selflessness extends to Jesse, yet.

He gets his answer later.

When they’re leaving behind corpses to come up on another old warehouse in the middle of some jungle, mud under their boots and armor heavy in the humidity--it’s Reyes and Smith on one side, McCree and Moreno on the other, Reyes’s silent command and a surge forward. They flank the building with practiced silence, storm in from front and back; it’s a surprise and the guards stationed inside--kids as much as Jesse is, Reyes realizes with a pang, wide eyes and thin hands white-knuckled around their guns--are all but helpless against it.

Reyes counts half a dozen--six teenagers, standing guard over three large cages of naked, broken people, stacks of empty supply crates, old oil drums. They fire as they scatter into the cover the debris provides...but it’s not quick enough. They’re unpracticed, untrained. Five bodies fall to the dirt and Reyes tells himself he will pray for them later, will mourn their loss and the failed system later.

 _“Only one left.”_ Smith’s voice is quiet over the comm-unit, reserved. He’d had a son, Gabriel remembers.

They hunt as a unit, fanning out and stalking through the maze of debris; working from front to back, it’s easier to cover ground. Gabriel and Smith focus on the left side of the warehouse, McCree and Moreno the right. It’s slow, nerve-wracking work, carefully flanking around piles of crates and whipping around drums, looking for the one piece of cover that the kid had chosen to hide behind before he regains enough nerve to shoot.

In the center of the room, the cages of people--mostly women and children, Gabriel notes, his lip curling--cry and cling to each other, eyes shockingly white against their dirty faces. They speak in hushed, rapid bursts of Thai and Lao, and the noise of it sets Gabriel’s teeth on edge. The scraps of conversation he can pick apart and decipher make his heart ache.

Until the sharp chatter of gunshots rings out, silences everything else, snaps Gabriel’s head up. Across the room is Moreno, standing stock-still in front of a toppled stack of crates; it’s like slow-motion as he falls backward, hitting the dirt with a thud Gabriel swears he can hear over his own heartbeat. Smith is next--whipped around at the sound of bullets and shot as his back twists, killed before he could even see his assailant. Gabriel doesn’t hear him fall because he’s opening fire, charging forward and rolling onto the other side of the enemy’s cover, ending the slaughter by splattering the teen’s brains against the crates he’d been hiding behind.

Six.

Chest heaving, Gabriel straightens up. He rushes over to his fallen team, fighting the grief, the dread--finds Smith with his throat blown out, bullet holes chewing him up in a wide spray from his chest to his jaw. His body twitches grotesquely with the final shocks of death as it’s bled dry into the dirt, his blue eyes glazing over. Two steps away lays Moreno with his face blown to pieces, what remains of his head a gory mess of crimson; his punishment for stumbling upon the enemy in close quarters.

Gabriel’s knees hit the ground hard. He kneels by the corpses and grabs their cooling hands in his own, and whispers a quick, quiet prayer for them--for what they lost, what they gave, pleading for them to receive salvation from whatever god cared now that their jobs are done. Their dogtags feel like lead as he slips them around his own neck, weigh heavily upon him as he stands, leaving their bodies where they lie--and he whips around, shotguns drawn, as he hears footsteps. Had they missed a hostile?

But it’s McCree, flinching as he stares down the twin black barrels pointed his way. His eyes are wide and his face is pale, streaked with dirt and dust and spattered with blood. He has both hands clutched to his left flank, but Gabriel can’t see any wound; come to think of it, he can’t recall seeing McCree, either, after their initial push. His eyes narrow.

“Where were you?” he snarls, not lowering his weapons--keeping McCree pinned under their threat, feeling a kind of dark satisfaction in watching the kid squirm uneasily. Even if it won’t bring his two agents back, it makes Gabriel feel a little better. Vindicated; avenged. “Where is your gun?”

“I…” Jesse swallows, his gaze darting around nervously--from the shotguns to the remains of Moreno’s bloody face, the crates behind Gabriel that had hidden the last killer. “I--”

“You what?” Gabriel snaps, stalking forward to shove at Jesse’s shoulder. The kid hits the ground and scrabbles backward, tucking himself up quickly behind a nearby oil drum; but his movements are too practiced, too familiar. When Gabriel stalks after him, he can see the issued rifle lying on the ground beside the drum. A quick look over his shoulder confirms what he was fearing--from here, there’s a clear line of sight to the teenager’s corpse. A clean shot.

For a moment, Gabriel seriously considers putting a bullet in McCree’s head himself.

“You were hiding,” he hisses, a venom-laced accusation--McCree flinches under the words like he’s been struck and so Gabriel gives him something to flinch about, kicking at those scrawny hips until the kid’s scrambling to his feet again. “You fucking coward!”

Jesse tries to run--and Gabriel holsters a shotgun and grabs him by the straps of his body armor, hauls him back around, throws him in front. Toward the cages of terrified people who were about to be bought and sold, and away from the corpses of those who died to free them. 

“You goddamn coward,” Gabriel snarls, tone hardened to steel. “They were your teammates! Tu familia! And you let them down, let them die--for what, huh?”

When the kid doesn’t respond right away, just stands there like a fool with his breath hitching, Gabriel slams that damn face against the bars of one of the cages. The people inside jerk back, eyes wide, staring at their saviour turned assailant.

“Answer me!”

“He was just a kid!” Jesse wails, struggling against the iron grip holding him against the bars, his voice cracking. “He was just a kid--couldn’t’ve been older than I am!”

He knew. Gabriel knew. And yet--

“So what.” The rage bleeds out of Gabriel’s voice, leaving it flat and cold, emotionless--Commander Reyes, the stone-hearted veteran of the battlefield. He tells Jesse what he tells himself, the words practiced and ashen on his tongue. “They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, born in the wrong part of the world and talking to the wrong people. What--am I gonna have to screen every single goddamn battlefield for you now, so you don’t have to be killing kids with guns?”

The tone turns mocking, Gabriel shaking his head even though he knows Jesse can’t see it, anguish and disappointment alike burning him up from the inside out. “‘Oh, I’m sorry Mr. Terrorist, but can you maybe not send your child soldiers in today? I know they’re your most common, but I have one of my own agents who still thinks that you’re above that kind of thing. I don’t want to ruin his image of a perfect world. Thanks--hugs and kisses--Commander Reyes.’”

“Fuck off, Reyes! Just--fuck off! I--I--” Underneath his grip, Jesse was shaking; and Gabriel leans in close, fixing the kid with a narrowed glare.

“I’m going to order you to kill people,” he hisses, shifting to grab the back of Jesse’s neck instead, grinding him up against the bars with the dregs of anger that he just can’t keep bottled up anymore. “I’m going to order you to kill kids, old ladies, ‘innocents.’ If you don’t want to do it, fine. I’m not going to beg you and I’m over giving you chances. Just let me know, and I’ll try to make sure your cell has HVAC. It’s the least I can do.”

Gabriel roughly lets go of his grip, leaving Jesse standing against the bars, his shoulders heaving. He could see the kid trying to keep himself from shaking to pieces, trying to keep his composure--in front of his Commander’s piercing glare and in front of the nameless victims he was supposed to be protecting.

“Well?” Gabriel spits, voice clipped and cold. “What will I tell Jack, ingrate? That I failed in helping you, or that you royally fucked up on your first mission?”

It’s depressing how he can compare Jesse, spitfire of earlier, now to a colt--young, barely able to stand on his own, shaking in every limb. Gabriel can see just how close he is to crying, in the hitch of his shoulders and the way he draws in on himself, how he bows his head. His heart would go out to the kid if he wasn’t too busy trying to keep everything else in check--his rage, his grief, his wits.

Besides... This is something Jesse needs to decide, once and for all. Without a room to keep him trapped and without cuffs keeping him restrained--with no one else to see, in case he chose wrongly--a choice he needed to make, before they got too deep. Before anyone else got killed.

“I done fucked up my first mission. Won’t happen again, sir.” Jesse’s voice is flat, weak--Gabriel would be concerned, if they weren’t standing on bloodstained soil with three cages of humans two steps away. If he didn’t think Jesse could handle it, move on, grow stronger.

Gabriel leaves Jesse to clean up when he steps outside the death-heavy air, radios in for evac while sitting under the shade of a teak tree. He sounds tired to his own ears as he relays that yes, the mission was--mostly-- a success, with one injury and two casualties. Yes, he tells Strike-Commander Morrison, they have secured the cargo. Yes, their intel was right; yes, the cargo is mostly uninjured.

_“And what of McCree?”_

“Jesse?” Gabriel shakes his head, manages a weak chuckle. With as tired as he is--physically, mentally, emotionally, his body still jetlagged by six hours and reeling from their loss--he can’t help how dark and morbid he sounds. “Don’t worry about him. He fucked up, but he’ll pull through. Kids like him always do.”

Pull through, Jesse does not--he barely manages to make it back to the transport before he breaks. He drops into the seat closest to the door like his legs have stopped working and pulls his hat down low, lets his head fall into his hands to cry against his bloodstained gloves.

Gabriel sits up front, runs his fingers along the new tags that sit around his neck; they toll their death knell against all of the others, deceptively soft and gentle. He pretends not to hear the heart-rending cries from behind him.

It’s the least he can do.

-x-

Sidelined after Thailand’s failure--for Mental Recovery, the file reads, to save Reyes and McCree both an embarrassment--a month passes before Jesse finds himself on another mission. This time Blackwatch is flown to the icefields of Greenland, and Jesse can see firsthand how they compare to the deserts of his home: remarkably similar, in the plain barren landscape, the threat of death from the elements. Treacherous footing, emptiness for miles, hostile fauna and sparse flora. He’s fascinated by how similar it all is.

Gabriel, meanwhile, could strangle Strike-Commander Morrison for foisting this joke of a job off on him.

It’s five people in all--Reyes, McCree, Landrum, Bodhan, Qua. On the books it looks like a simple mission, all things considered: find the bad guys responsible for the movement of illegal arms across the border and take them out, take the arms back to the States, leave their bodies for the polar bears. An easy task with only ten hostiles, no omnics around to make their lives harder, no one watching. In and out, and then Blackwatch was heading back home in time for a late dinner.

But Gabriel Reyes knows that when things sound too good to be true, it’s because they are.

McCree is the one to spot the armored carapace first, shouting over the comms as gunfire erupts in deafening bursts around him. He drops to the snow as his brain shuts down, every higher function gone and all energy now allocated to one goal: survive.

Meanwhile Gabriel is ten feet to his left and already thinking three steps ahead, filtering all the chatter in his earpiece to get a muddy picture of the field, of their next move. Years--long, grueling decades--of training means that he can bark orders and strategize while gunning down the enemy, even as the world comes crashing down around his feet; and he silently thanks the fucked-up torture program that was the SEP every time he hits the battlefield for giving him that extra edge, making him that much better.

But he can’t do everything. He can’t be everywhere. And even with all of Blackwatch’s cutting-edge tech--half of it so new it’s still experimental--he can’t get all of the information he needs fast enough to save everybody.

“I’m hit!” Qua suddenly screeches, voice shrill over the comm-unit. She’s yards away, at the top of the semi-circle Blackwatch has formed around the dealers’ camp, well out of Gabriel’s immediate reach. “Landrum--”

“I’m pinned down! Commander! I can’t--!” And the sentence is cut short as a choppy burst of gunfire rings out, silencing their only medic forever. Gabriel doesn’t have time to mourn--just tucks that hurt down to deal with later and moves on, trying to plan around the unforeseen casualty.

“Shit. Who’s closest to the body?” Reyes roars, popping up from the snowbank he covers behind to fire at the old Bastion units, then dropping back down to reload every time he has a chance. “Team!”

“I’ve got it, sir!” Bodhan at least knows which end of a needle to stick someone with, the best place to jab. A lucky break--Blackwatch’s resident ex-drug dealer turning doctor. Gabriel would laugh about it if he wasn’t caught up in the middle of a gunfight, if he wasn’t warring with himself to keep the flashbacks at bay; he guns down a Bastion and drops back down to breathe, hears his blood roar.

The Crisis is over, he tells himself, reloading with shaking fingers. They can all sleep easy because all the bad robots are dead--there’s plaques that say so, books and songs and stories. Statues, memorials; their victory recorded forever, part of the new world’s history.

Flesh and blood thunks down on Gabriel’s right hand side, nearly makes him jump out of his skin. It’s McCree, his eyes alight and serious, bleeding from a cut over his brow.

“Jesus, kid!” Gabriel snaps, masking his startled fright with anger--here, of all places, he cannot afford to be weak. His team needs more than that. “Should get you a fucking bell or something. You nearly got your brains blown out.”

Jesse has enough sense to look chagrined, shrugging his shoulders weakly. “Sorry, jefe. Should’ve said something.” Gabriel rolls his eyes.

“Next time, do.” He peers out from behind his cover, eyes scanning everything he can--two Bastions left, seven hostiles he can see, guarding a camp of one bunker, a shed, and two tents--before he drops back down again. _All of the bad robots are dead_ , he reminds himself, even as he sees one more Bastion stagger out of one bunker’s entrance with frost-stiffened joints.

Gabriel swallows down his curse--hates that he can’t see within, gauge how many more omnics they’re up against. Nothing scares him more on a battlefield than unknowns, nothing tilts the odds more against them; and he scowls to himself as he decides that it’s time to level the playing field.

“Qua.” Gabriel doesn’t wait for the response before he barks, “Once you’re patched up, I need you to go set your charges. Hurry.”

Her disbelief is palpable, even over the line. “Set my--? But I thought that--”

“Are you arguing with me, agent?” Gabriel’s tone is sharp as razor wire, brooks no argument; he doesn’t have time to entertain banter, right now. There’s a plan in his head and an invisible clock ticking over it, and they have to move quickly. The comm-line goes as icy as their surroundings.

“...No, sir.”

“That’s what I fucking thought. I need you to set the charges on the entrances to that bunker--I’m highlighting it’s location now.” A few quick taps on his gauntlet later, and a bright blue icon blooms to life on Qua’s targeting scope, highlighting the bunker’s main entrance. “All team members, we cover Qua as she works, so the bad guys die and everyone can go home in once piece. Understood?”

The sound of three voices of confirmation--one doubled given its owner was right beside him-- ringing over the comm-line is music to Gabriel’s ears. He waits for Qua’s signal, her clipped voice; the pain in it is masked by field painkillers, the biotics, and the determination that he knows burns in her gut, so he puts aside his worry for her and her injury to deal with later. Right now he has to focus.

The unit moves as one, folding in on itself to lay down covering fire as Qua rushes forward, the greys of her arctic camo rendering her all but invisible against the ice and snow. McCree takes down three guards in a rapid-fire move that Gabriel will be sure to mention to Jack, and Bodhan guns down an omnic as it rushes across the camp, blasting it to pieces. The stiff Bastion, latest to the fight and closest to them, goes down with a screeching noise that sounds too akin to a human’s cry for Gabriel’s liking, and he drops back behind another snowdrift to reload.

“Qua. Update.”

“Placing charges now.” She sounds breathless; Gabriel wonders fleetingly if she’d been shot in the lung, then tells himself Qua is a capable agent and full-grown woman. He tells himself that she will be okay. “I’m gone in ninety seconds, Commander.”

“Good.” Gabriel comes back up, picks off a guard using the downed Bastion as cover, and announces, “On my count, we pull out. Leave this place to blow and come back to comb through the wreckage. Ready.”

He gets a chorus of answering cries, nods to himself--then looks over sharply as his targeting sight detects movement.

It’s another Bastion--just how many had been hiding in these frosty wastelands? It rises out of a snowbank like a waking giant, a mere stone’s throw from Qua’s back.

“Qua! Your six!” Gabriel shouts, peppering the omnic’s legs with bullets--from this far away, they might as well be rubber, for all the damage they do.

Ignoring the petty fire, the Bastion spins around, its targets sighting and locking on Qua--and Gabriel jumps the snowdrift to rush forward, smoke trailing from his shotguns as he fires. The omnic whips around, and Gabriel finds himself staring down a Bastion’s barrel again, his heart in his throat; he dives out of the way just in time to avoid being chewed up by the rapid-fire machine gun. With shaking fingers he reloads, charges again.

It’s a terrifying game of cat and mouse--this far away his shotguns aren’t at their most effective, and it’s hard to get a critical shot when he’s juking and rolling through the snow to avoid being killed. But it keeps the Bastion’s attention on him and away from Qua, even as it takes an occasional step toward her; Gabriel breaks the game by rushing forward while the omnic reloads its gun. One last shot from two yards away and the Bastion shudders to a halt, sparking; with a low groan of dying protest it topples forward.

Qua disappears under the mass of metal, and Gabriel winces at the scream in his earpiece.

“Qua?” He stares at the place where the omnic had gone down, his mouth suddenly dry. “Qua! Report!”

For a moment there’s silence. Gabriel holds his breath. Beside him, Jesse bows his head. Then--

“Commander!” Qua sounds frantic--through the driving snow Gabriel can see her, lying on the ground by the bunker’s entrance with the ruined Bastion toppled over her lower body, keeping her pinned despite how she beats and shoves at the lifeless metal. Barely an arm’s length away, the charges pulse red, counting down from their automatic timer. His blood goes cold.

“Fuck!” He’s moving before he knows it, running toward her, away from his team. He can hear the bullets zipping past him, hear the desperate shouts of McCree and Bodhan from behind--but when he slides down beside her it’s the beeping of the charges that replace that noise, counting down to inevitable destruction.

Qua is a mess--eyes wide and frightened behind her goggles, skin pale, blood dried across her temple. She’s too busy trying to untangle her legs to look up when Gabriel approaches, and one look down is enough to explain why: her right leg, bearing the brunt of the weight and the collision, is a mess of blood and muscle. Crimson has already soaked through the fatigues in vivid lines and splotches, and in one torn-open, ragged hole in the fabric Gabriel can see the ivory white of bone.

“You’re going to be okay,” he barks, his voice gruff as he wrestles with the warped metal, trying to pry it free. Qua kicks out as best she can with the leg that is still intact, her breath coming in sharp little gasps, and Gabriel’s basic first-aid training tells him that’s not a good sign. “Qua. Stop panicking. We have to go.”

He tries to keep his voice calm, collected--something level for his agent to lean against--but with the charges still ticking away behind him, oblivious to their plight, he can feel his own panic mounting in his chest, making it hard to breathe.

They do have to go. Right now.

With a colossal effort, Gabriel braces himself under the bulk of the Bastion and heaves it up; he ignores the way his muscles quiver and strain as Qua wiggles her legs free, and as soon as he can he drops the omnic with a huff through his ground teeth, ignoring the ache that lingers in his arms. He grabs Qua by the belt to haul her up, and she flings her arm over his shoulders, leaning on him as they hurriedly hobble away.

“Too late,” Qua moans, voice a pained thing, hitching as she twists her fingers in the fabric of Gabriel’s sleeve. “Too late…”

It’s unnecessary, terrifying--but true. The countdown is reaching zero and Gabriel knows they won’t make it back to safety, away from the blast, in time. So with his arms locked around Qua’s waist and head tucked down against his chest, he dives for the nearest snowbank and prays.

The blast catches them in mid-air, with a noise loud enough to rattle Gabriel’s brain. For a heart-stopping moment everything is white, and silent, and cold; and then darkness rushes in on the heels of a loud ringing note, and sweeps him into oblivion on a rising tide of black.

-x-

Gabriel wakes up warm, and opens his eyes to white. The--unfortunately--familiar smell of strong antiseptic and bleach hits him like a tidal wave, and he groans as it pulls him right out of his content doze.

“...are you awake?”

Gabriel looks over at the voice--and there to break up the white and the grey is a tower of blue capped in gold, Strike-Commander Morrison himself sitting by Gabriel’s bed with a book in his lap. When Gabriel holds his gaze--feels himself starting to get lost in those blue, blue eyes again, something fluttering in his chest that has nothing to do with the drugs in his blood--Jack frowns and marks his place in his book, sets it on the bedside table.

Gabriel notes how close to the end the mark is. He blearily wonders how long Jack’s been here, then tells himself he shouldn’t care.

“...What happened?” Gabriel asks instead, sitting up and wincing; bandages rustle around his midsection, and he pulls the thick blanket back enough to look down at them with irritation. A bout of squirming to get comfortable later, and his gaze darts back up to Jack. “How long was I out?”

“Two days.” Something tugs at the corner of Jack’s mouth, like he’s trying to smile--but it’s there and gone again so quickly that Gabriel can’t be sure he’s not imagining things. He drops his head back against the pillow, watching the way Jack’s lips move and trying to focus on the words that leave them. His chest feels pleasantly warm, almost tingly; he blames it on the drugs.

“As for what happened…” Jack hesitates, then sighs, that same twitch pulling at his mouth again. “After you pulled Qua out of the wreckage of the Bastion--and nearly got yourself blown to smithereens, you know better, Gabriel--McCree took over. He started giving out orders like he was born to do it. Got you and Qua out, got the rest of the hostiles neutralized, got all of you and the cargo back safely. Looks like your gut was right; Blackwatch’s got a new agent.”

Gabriel blinks--McCree? _Jesse McCree_? He almost can’t believe it--the young punk who was damn near ready to be flung into jail and never see the light of day again, the bratty ingrate who hid on missions and snapped at his commanding officer. The cowboy who would rather put a bullet in Gabriel’s head than to work for him-- _with_ him--he completed the mission.

Without Gabriel there to even supervise. The thought fills him with pride.

But--Jesse wasn’t the only person he’d been worried about. His eyes find Jack’s again, and he licks his cracked lips before he starts, “Qua--”

“Will need a prosthetic, but she’ll live.” Finally, Jack gives in; a slow, small smile stretches across his face, makes his eyes soften. “You did good, Gabriel. No one else could’ve handled that surprise attack as well as you.”

Gabriel basks in the complement for a few moments, savouring the feeling of accomplishment that pools in his chest--praise for Blackwatch, naturally, is very few and far between. Then he remembers Landrum, the scream of their medic as he was gunned down, and the warm feeling changes to ice.

“...not good enough,” he says, voice soft; he drops his gaze down to the bandages coiling around his ribs again. If he had been just a little quicker, a little smarter; had seen the hostiles approaching, just a second sooner--

Gabriel feels warmth laid over his hand and he startles. A glance over finds his hand encompassed by Jack’s own, their fingers lightly entwined.

“Landrum died a hero,” Jack says, and Gabriel is relieved to hear that it’s really Jack this time, the warmth like honey in his voice and something that Strike-Commander Morrison will forever lack. Jack’s expression, when Gabriel finally tears his eyes off their joined hands, is something caught between sympathetic and proud and fond and Gabriel finds himself never wanting to look away.

“You can’t save everybody, Gabe.”

There’s silence for a beat, considering; but they both know he’ll never agree. Then, Gabriel quietly asks, “Did you get his tags?”

“They were sent home with his body, but I did order a copy made for you.” Unease crosses Jack’s face, chases away the expression Gabriel was lost in. “I know it’s not the same--”

“But it’s good enough.” Gabriel turns his hand enough to catch Jack’s fingers, and gives them a squeeze, trying to ignore the way his heart aches--for what he’s lost, what he’s gained, what dances just outside of his reach. His voice is hoarser than he’d like as he murmurs, “Thanks, Jaquito.”

“Of course.” Jack holds his gaze for a moment longer, then bites at his lip. He turns in his chair to face the bed fully, swallows; when he finally speaks, it’s with clear uncertainty, but with an urgency Gabriel hasn’t heard in years. “I’m really glad you’re okay, Gabriel. You had me worried, and I was thinking--”

But what Jack was thinking, Gabriel laments he will never know, because it’s at that moment that the door opens. Jesse McCree stands in the threshold with a wide grin on his face--but as soon as he sees the closeness of the two Commanders, the interlocked fingers, his expression falls.

“Oh, shit,” he starts, taking a step back and fumbling for the doorknob, pulling his hat down low to hide his eyes. “Sorry, I uh, I’ll come back--”

“Wha--no!” Jack’s on his feet in an instant, flushing under his collar; his hand jerks away from Gabriel’s sharply, and he misses the frown that flits across Gabriel’s face. He takes a breath to collect himself, then continues, “Jesse--it’s fine. I was just leaving.” He looks back to Gabriel, gives him a strained, awkward smile, and quickly says, “If you need me--well. You know. I’ll see you around, Commander Reyes.”

He quickly turns, the hem of his duster fluttering in his haste to get to the hallway. Jesse stares after him as he leaves, then slowly turns to look at Gabriel, one brow raised.

“....well.” He crosses the room to drop into the chair Jack left vacated, slinging an arm up over the back of it comfortably. “Glad to see you bright-eyed, Commander. I was startin’ to worry.”

Gabriel rolls his eyes, but can’t find it in himself to be mad at the kid--not with the drugs keeping him mellow and the ghost of Jack’s touch keeping him warm. “Don’t worry, brat. You’re not going to get rid of me that easily.” Jesse pulls a small baggie from his pocket, and Gabriel raises a brow at it. “...what is that?”

Jesse offers him a sheepish grin, shrugging with one shoulder as he rolls the joint between his fingertips. “Bodhan wanted to send his regards...how’re those painkillers?”

Gabriel’s grin is toothy. “Not strong enough.”

The flick of a lighter and a few leisurely pulls later, and the two have settled into an easy, comfortable quiet in the room. Gabriel watches the clock on the wall and thinks about sunshine, until Jesse’s voice drags him out of his head.

“You and the Strike Commander….there’s something going on there, ain’t there?” Jesse’s eyes dart to him, dark and knowing, glinting with a mischief that matches his grin.

Gabriel snorts, taking another drag off the joint and shaking his head. “...it’s complicated,” is what he says over the plume of smoke, because that’s easier than talking at length about unrequited feelings and missed opportunities and what could have been. Beside him, Jesse laughs.

“Complicated--how? If y’all have history, it shouldn’t be that hard...”

“Jack’s a...frustrating guy,” Gabriel says, letting his gaze drift in and out of focus; simply enjoying the company, the high, the conversation. It’s a nice change of pace, right here--no rushing, no harassment for this report or that paperwork, and for a fleeting moment he debates getting injured more often. “Hard to figure out, and even harder to talk to, sometimes…”

“And?” Jesse leans back, props his boots up on the end of the bed; they smudge dirt across the crisp white sheets, but the grin he throws at Gabriel is dazzling against his sun-kissed skin.

“You’ve always loved a challenge, Commander.”

Gabriel pauses before he grins at the ingrate, tilts his head back to blow a stream of smoke up toward the ceiling. The laughter, when it comes, makes his ribs ache.

“That I have, McCree.” On impulse he reaches over to grab Jack’s forgotten book off the table, and runs his thumb over the edge of the cover, chipped and softened by use; _An Affair to Remember_ , the title reads, and Gabriel can’t help the way his smile goes lopsided.

“That I have.”


End file.
